Gerhard Benecke

My local library has about 4 shelves devoted to German history - 3 deal with Hitler, Nazism and WW2, 3/4 of the 4th deals with Prussia to WW1, and 1/4 for everything else. It was a delight to find this book in my favourite second hand bookshop. I understand when a country is divided into over 100 duchies and kingdoms of various sizes a singular history becomes very difficult to write. Benecke does a great job in outlining the German system that prevailed in reference to 13 duchies in the north-western part of the country. He then focusses in depth on one Duchy - Lippe - going in full detail how the duchy was managed and the relationship between the classes and its duke, and the relationship of the duchy to the Federal system and the Emperor. Generally when we look back at this era we think of what messy political system allowed such an absurd arrangement to emerge and persist, but Benecke's analysis shows it is an outcome of very successful financial management strategies aimed at allowing local political elites to maintain independence from direct Federal control or from the interference of other parties. In that sense this analysis serves as a mirror/moral tale to our times - the teens (2010s) - although it was impossible for that to be the author's intention at the time (the 1970's) .… (meer)